The project supports European wine producers to meet rising environmental requirements of environmental laws. A quality seal will be developed to make improvements in sustainability obvious for customers. With this certification the image of wine from southern-european countries can be enhanced and therefore boost the demand. The trend towards less consumption, the compensation of over-production and the preference for wines from overseas that has been remarkable for some years will be stopped by this means. Especially small and medium-size family-run companies will benefit from these strategical efforts. The competitiveness of traditional wine-growing areas with their grown structure will be strengthened. European producers generate over 60 per cent of the world wide wine production.

Wine processing bears hugh amounts of waste water as a by-product. They often contain pieces of solid organic compounds. So far, a common treatment technique to filter them has not been established. Environmental regulations focus on the treatment of solid and liquid compounds in the waste water in order to avoid uncontroled usage as natural fertilizers for the grape-vines. The results are not acceptable: people suffer from the strong smell and the ground water is polluted. Since the production period is tied to certain times of the year, very bad pollution of the local wastewater treatment systems can occur during the high season. If the wine producing area has no access to the sewage water system, serious damage is caused in neighbouring lakes and rivers.

Due to these circumstances producers fail in meeting existing regulations like guidelines for wastage treatment and security specifications, but also in making use of biological active compounds of high quality. Added value can be gained by refining the material. The project SUSTAVINO shows an opportunity to improve the efficiency of raw material, quality requirements and regulations.